BEIJING -- China on Thursday released a new judicial interpretation to intensify the crackdown on criminal cases involving intellectual property infringement.
The interpretation aims to meet the growing public demand for strengthened intellectual property protection as criminal activities are "increasingly taking on new forms, becoming more complex and technologically sophisticated," said Tao Kaiyuan, vice president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC).
The interpretation lowers the threshold for criminal liability. For instance, in the case of selling infringing copies, the criterion for "a relatively large amount of illegal gains" has been reduced from 100,000 yuan (about 13,870 U.S. dollars) to 50,000 yuan.
Harsher penalties have been included in the interpretation to target offenses with significant social harm and clear malicious intent.
The interpretation raises the upper limit for fines, increasing the range from the previous "between one and five times the amount of illegal gains" to "between one and 10 times".
The interpretation was jointly issued by the SPC and the Supreme People's Procuratorate.
According to official data, from 2013 to 2024, procuratorates across China filed a total of 69,100 criminal cases involving intellectual property infringement, while courts concluded 64,600 such cases at the first-instance level.